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McKibben Christmas

December 4th, 2007 by Phil

I’ve been a fan of Bill McKibben’s since he published an article in The New Yorker about spending a weekend in a cabin in Virginia doing nothing but watching television. What could he learn about the world from such an experience? Gonzo Journalism for nerds. His most famous book I think is “The End of Nature.” But here’s a nice piece that suggests you don’t have to get rid of the idea of “Christmas” if you spend a little creativity and energy to change the holiday season from crass commercial crapfest to humbling homebound holiday. (Sorry, for some reason when I open the link the article comes out as a very narrow one-word column preceded by tons of advertising, but it’s worth struggling through.)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 4th, 2007 at 9:13 pm and is filed under Consumerism, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “McKibben Christmas”

  1. Erich Vieth Says:
    December 5th, 2007 at 5:55 pm

    McKibben is right-on about “stuff”:

    Stuff itself is a problem less because of its environmental toll (though that is quite high) than because it’s increasingly meaningless. Think of your friends. Are many of them lacking in stuff? Or is the first question that forms in their minds when a new gift arrives from under the tree: “Where am I going to put this?” . . .

    Our environmental problem is that we consume way too much because we’ve agreed to try and meet basic human needs — status, respect, affection — with material ends.

    Lots of good comments, too. I found a working version of the article at http://www.alternet.org/environment/69068/ . It actually started out as that long one-word column you mentioned, then I clicked a link, then I clicked “go back” and it was a normal looking article.

  2. Phil Says:
    December 5th, 2007 at 9:18 pm

    Cool–thanks for the tech tip! I may have another Henry Adams post later this evening.

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